A Shot For Whatever She's Got
by DFM
Summary: When her best friend shows up at her door completely drunk, Lanie knows there can be only one reason: Richard Castle. Future!Fic


**Title: **A Shot For Whatever She's Got

**Pairing:** Castle/Beckett

**Spoilers: **Nikki Heat

**Rating:** PG

**Summary: **When her best friend shows up at her door completely drunk, Lanie knows there can be only one reason: Richard Castle. Future!Fic

**Disclaimer:** If it looks or sounds like something from Castle, I don't own it.

**A/N:** This is just a goofy little one-shot! Hopefully you guys like it :D

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><p>Lanie was worried about Kate. Her best friend was currently laying on her couch, staring up at the ceiling and trying to stop the room from spinning around her. Kate Beckett didn't get drunk; it was one of the things that Lanie found truly annoying about her. They would go out, and while Lanie would become louder and a little friendlier with the men around her, Kate wouldn't get the slightest bit tipsy. But now here she was, drunk in Lanie's living room.<p>

Lanie knew for a fact that she wasn't working on a particularly stressful case at the moment, which left one probable cause: Richard Castle.

"Sweetie, what happened?"

Kate looked at her, surprised. "Lanie! When'd you get here?"

"This is my apartment."

"Oh, right," she agreed readily. "I have an apartment; it's a really nice one. With Rick... I love Rick; did you know that, Lanie?"

"I do know that. Did something happen with Castle?"

Kate shook her head vehemently and almost succeeded in falling off the couch, but Lanie was close enough that she caught the giggling detective. "Whoops!"

"You're lucky that you're not that heavy." Once she got her friend settled, Lanie sat on the floor next to her. "Now, do you want to tell me why you showed up on my doorstep less than sober?"

"I'm not drunk, Lanie!" she protested unconvincingly. "I just had some... champagne... Alexis is getting married!"

"Little Castle is engaged?" Lanie couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice. Kate had told her about Will, but she had no idea that they were anywhere near the 'I do' point.

"Yup, she's _so_ happy. And bouncy. She gets really bouncy when she's happy."

"Okay... there has to be more to this story. There's no way you got like this on one glass of champagne."

Beckett's brow furrowed as she tried to remember. "Martha and I had some wine after Alexis left and Rick went to sulk. I don' know how much... she just kept _pouring_. Pour. Pour. Pour. That's a weird word... pour."

"Ah," Lanie interrupted. Five repetitions of one word was her limit.

"And she kept saying she wasn't ready for her granddaughter to be getting married and that she thought Rick and I would be getting married first, but we're never getting married."

And there it was. "Oh, honey... he'll ask you someday."

Kate again shook her head violently. "Nope, he won't. Married Mere-Mere and Giiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnaaa. Can't keep doing the same thing over and over; that's the definition of instantly."

"Insanity?"

"Yes! That's it!"

Resting a comforting hand on Kate's arm, Lanie reassured her. "He knows you're different."

"I am?" Beckett got that look on her face that she got when she was chewing over a new fact to see if it had any bearing on an investigation. "He keeps saying that his marriages were _horrible_. I don't want our relationship to be horrible."

"I don't think it was getting married that made those relationships horrible, honey."

"But what if it was?" Beckett insisted louder than was really necessary. "What if they were perfect together before the marriages? They must have been happy or he wouldn't have asked them!" Lanie was pretty sure her friend was about to start crying. "I'm so happy with him, Lanie. I don't want to mess that up by getting married."

A drunk Beckett was apparently a bipolar Beckett. Lanie leaned forward to grab a tissue box off the coffee table, which was when she noticed the several missed calls flashing on Beckett's cell. Praying that her friend did not get wasted when she was on call, she was more than a little relieved to see that they were all from Castle. She should probably put the poor boy out of his misery, she decided.

"Kate?" he answered on the first ring, sounding like he wanted to reach through the phone and pull Beckett into his arms.

"Relax, writer boy, she's here."

"Lanie? How'd she get over there?"

"A cab, I'm assuming... I never did ask. Kate, how'd you get here?"

"Walked!" Lanie wanted to smack that proud smile off her friend's face.

"What?" both she and Castle cried at the same time.

"It's not that far."

Castle was close to hyperventilating, but managed to say firmly, "I'm coming to get her. Don't let her leave."

"She's safe right now, Castle. Don't kill yourself trying to get to her." Not waiting for a reply, Lanie hung up. "You better have a killer hangover tomorrow."

##

Kate didn't know who was repetitively beating her head in with a hammer, but if she could find her gun she'd kill them. Next to her, someone set a glass down on the bedside table, though it sounded more like a bowling ball being dropped on granite.

"Kate, come on... I need you to sit up for me and drink some of this. A prairie oyster doesn't have the longest shelf life..."

"Rick," she croaked, peering out at him through heavy eyelids, "what the hell happened?"

"You let my mother dictate your alcohol intake. I thought I warned you that that was never a good plan."

Picking up the glass, she took a sip of the hangover cure and, when she managed not to gag, tried another. "Did Lanie come by last night? I vaguely remember talking to her."

Fixing her with a stern look that he probably practiced seldomly when Alexis was growing up, though he tempered it with affectionately brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, Castle shook his head. "No, Mrs. Charles, you walked yourself to the good MEs door."

"Shit."

"That was one of the words I used when I realized you were gone." As she finished off her drink, he sat and took in every inch of her face. "Lanie said you were upset."

"I was drunk," she argued immediately, though she couldn't say exactly why. The night was still a little too soft focus - one of the reasons why she never got well and truly drunk.

"Sure." She almost thought he was going to let it go, but then he gave her the 'I have a better story' look. "You were upset before that, though. Do you think Alexis is too young to get married?"

"No, _you're_ the one who went all _Father of the Bride_ on her and were looking like your toddler just told you she got engaged."

"She's my baby!" She couldn't quite hide the wince and his shout of protest. "Sorry."

"Just... not so loud."

"Kate, I feel like I'm missing a vital piece of evidence here. Did I do something wrong?"

"Well, you did squeeze the toothpaste in the middle again."

"I maintain that it's toothpaste gremlins doing that."

"Crest has specific gremlins?"

"Every job needs to have specialists."

Shaking her head, she slid back down into their bed, waiting as Castle settled in next to her before laying her head on his shoulder. "Martha commented on the fact that she thought we'd be married long before she had to worry about great grandchildren."

To his credit, Castle barely showed any signs of surprise. "We probably did upset quite a few pools. Though Alexis did catch the bouquet at Lanie and Esposito's wedding. Of course, if memory serves, that was because you ducked at the last second."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It was probably just my overactive imagination." The shrug of his shoulder made her head raise with the motion, which she glared at him half-heartedly for. "We could get married, you know."

"What?" Kate ignored the throbbing of her head as she jerked into a sitting position. "That better not have been a proposal, Castle."

Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he sat up. "What if it was?"

"Then take it back!"

"Why?"

"Because you've said more romantic things to me over dead bodies! You can't ask me when I'm close to passing out from a hangover and because other people are pressuring us to 'tie the knot'."

"What if I told you I'd been trying to figure out how to ask you for the past year?"

"Then I'd say I want my writer back, because there's no way that _Richard Castle_ would think that this was setting the proper scene." Throwing back the covers, she angrily stood up. "I'm going to take a shower."

"You told me you wanted something intimate. What's more intimate than this?" She meant over a candlelight dinner or something similar, but she definitely wasn't going to give him any pointers right now. "Of course I could always follow my mother's advice..."

Before she could even decide if she wanted to know, he began rummaging through the bedside table. She had just enough time to decide that if he pulled out a condom she was never going to allow him to touch her again, when his hand emerged with an appropriately sized jewelry box. Kneeling down in front of her, looking more than a little ridiculous in his t-shirt, boxers, and bed head, Castle opened the ring box. "Katherine Beckett, will you marry me?"

Staring in shock at the most beautiful, delicate diamond ring she'd ever seen, Beckett couldn't help but whisper, "You better not have just run out and gotten that last night."

"I didn't," Rick grumbled in exasperation. "Now if you could give me an answer, because my knees are kill-"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Did you want me to change my answer?"

Jumping up, he pulled her into a deep, slow kiss. "Not a chance." The ring slid into place, fitting perfectly in its new home. "I'm going to have to come up with a more romantic story for us to tell everyone, aren't I?"

"Definitely."

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><p><strong>The End<strong>


End file.
